The Crucible Newspaper Project - Mrs. Wilinski's Class



The Crucible Newspaper Project

This actual assignment can be accessed and WILL be submitted through the EDMODO site.

You are a member of the staff of the local newspaper in Salem 1692 & the U.S. 1950’s. You have been very busy lately because the town faces a historic crisis. The town is anxious to read the next edition of your newspaper…

You will create a newspaper based on the important events that take place in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible & The Red Scare. 

The newspaper will consist of a minimum of TWO pages.

The first page will consist of a minimum of 2 articles about 2 significant events in the story. 

The second page of the newspaper will consist of a minimum of 2 articles about 2 significant events that took place in the world during the Red Scare (1 MUST include an article on McCarthyism or the Red Scare). 

Each news story must be at least 150 words long, with an engaging title.   

Each article must have 2 quotes in it, with who stated the quote.

After writing the minimum 4 articles (2 from events in the play + 2 from world history), create a 2 page newspaper using the articles you have created. All articles in the newspaper must be typed.

Also include a minimum of 6 graphics (pictures, drawings, charts, graphs, etc).   The graphics may be hand-drawn, computer-based clipart, photographs, images from the internet, etc.

All photos must have captions.

These graphics should include typical "space fillers" into the newspaper to add realism.  Fillers include things like advertisements, weather reports, cross word puzzles, an advise/gossip column, etc. Make sure it is era appropriate for each page.

HELPFUL LAYOUT LESSONS AND ONLINE TEMPLATES:

Interactive Web-Based Newspaper Template 

Downloadable Templates in Various Formats (Word, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc)

Templates for creating the newspaper: OR OR Google Extension OR Word file

Youtube Video Tutorials for MS WORD

 NEWS STORIES FROM THE PLAY:

The Crucible is a 4 Act play.  Students are expected to write at least 2 stories based on events from the story. You may only use 1 story per act.

The stories should be based on the significant events from the play and from historical details.  Flesh out the minor details for their stories as you see fit.  HOWEVER, as you write each story they must be true to the historical record.  DO NOT add/make up information that will significantly change how the story actually unfolded in history.  For example, the stories cannot say that aliens came down and kidnapped Tituba -or- that John Proctor and Abigail Williams got married and lived happily ever after.

 

NEWS STORIES FROM HISTORY:

When searching for topics to write about from history, you may use a 10 year window of time (1946-1950’s).  Any significant event that occured in the world during that time is fair game for a story, but of course some events will be more interesting to research and will be easier to write about based on the amount of information that is available, and one must be about McCarthyism /The Red Scare.  The links to the timelines at the bottom of this page may give you ideas.

A good way to gather information all in one place is to open a Word document and as you find info, copy and paste it into that document.  After you have gathered all of the information and details that you want for your story ideas, email it/save it to a drive, etc. and use it as the basis for your ORIGINAL articles.  You cannot simply copy & paste a summary of an event that you found online. You must turn it into an interesting NEWS ARTICLE that has an angle/makes a point and is in YOUR OWN WORDS.

NOTES: 

The timelines will most likely NOT provide you with enough information to create a news story.  Use the timelines to identify potential story ideas, then gather more information by using Google or another search engine. 

Remember, do NOT just copy information about a historical event from the internet and paste into your "article" and believe that you are done.  THAT is plagiarism.  Among other things, plagiarism will result in a score of ZERO for this project.

 History Timelines online:

HISTORY EXPLORER - Just scroll down the page to find the years/events you find interesting.  ()

INFOPLEASE TIMELINE - Choose the century you wish to look at and then look year by year for significant events that interest you.  Some events listed in the timeline have hyperlinks that will take you to additional information.  ()

TIMELINE - Select a century from the timeline at the top of the page and then select a decade.  Scroll through the list of important events found within each decade.  ()

DIGITAL HISTORY - Move the gold slider at the bottom of the page and watch the map change as it adds and takes away locations for important events in history. Move the slider to the time around 1690 and you will see an orange dot appear on the map representing Salem, Massachusets.  click on the Salem dot to get more information on what happened at that time.  (digitalhistory.uh.edu/timeline/timelineO.cfm)

CHRONOLOGIES - Enter the type of history you are interested in (General, Political and Military, U.S. Cultural History, American History, etc) THEN enter the  dates (years) you want to search.  (memorialhall.mass.edu/chronology/make_chronology.jsp)

HYPER HISTORY - A completely interactive timeline.  View historical timelines that present famous people, events, scientific discoveries, religious movements, political occurances, etc.  When you click on the buttons to the left of the page, the bottom of the page, or within the timelines themselves, information will appear on the right side of the page.  (online_n2/History_n2/a.html)

CAMELOT INTERNATIONAL TIMELINE -  View virtual timelines for anywhere in the world covering 2000 years of history.  (world/europe.html)

 

ARTICLE EXAMPLE:  Remember that you are supposed to be writing stories for a NEWSPAPER, which means that your stories should include the important pieces of information that make up a news story (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How).  Be sure that the events you choose to write about would be considered interesting/newsworthy for a newspaper to report on.  Here is an example story.  DO NOT copy this article simply use it as a guideline.

 

STRANGE BOOKS AND STRANGE TIMES

It has been reported that a woman living in Salem, a Mrs. Martha Corey, has been reading strange books in her house.  Her husband, Giles, was overheard yesterday asking the Reverend Hale about the books and what it might mean in light of the recent occurrences of witchcraft in the village. 

According to Mr. Corey, "I have waked at night many a time and found her in a corner, readin' of a book...Last night...I tried and tried and could not say my prayers.  And then she close her book and walks out of the house, and suddenly...I could pray again."

While this reporter could not get the Rev. Hale to confirm that this is a definite sign of witchcraft, he did let Mr. Corey know that they would need to discuss this further saying, "Ah, the stoppage of prayer - that is strange."

Neighbors of the Corey Family have confirmed that they, too, have seen Martha Corey reading books and even, much to their horror, laughing as she did so.  One person in particular who has known Martha Corey since she was a young girl had this to say:

“Martha has always been nice, but strange.  She has always had odd ideas in her head about things like books and reading and education.  Why, at some point she even told her parents that she wanted to go to college!  Can you imagine that?  A woman going to college?!  What good would that do her?  Everyone knows that a woman needs to know about raising a family and working along side her husband.  College won’t help her with that.  So it doesn’t surprise me that she was seen reading.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she was mixed up in the witchcraft that has been going on as well.”

When this anonymous individual was asked to elaborate further on what she meant about Mrs. Corey’s involvement in witchcraft, this person would not say anymore, saying she was afraid that Mrs. Corey might send her spirit in the night to kill her.

The Crucible Newspaper Project Rubric

|POINTS  |20 |15 |10 |5 |Evaluation |

|Layout |Visually appealing. |Somewhat visually |Somewhat visually |Not very visually |  |

| |Includes 2 or more |appealing. Includes 2|appealing. Includes |appealing. Includes | |

| |pages including 6 |pages including 6 |some artwork. Has less |little to no artwork. | |

| |graphics & creative |graphics & artwork. No|than 2 pages or less |Has spaces that could | |

| |artwork or other |unused spaces. |than 6 graphics. Has |be better utilized. | |

| |advanced features. No | |some unused spaces. |Missing pages & | |

| |unused spaces. | | |graphics. | |

|Grammar |Grammar, spelling, |Includes minimal |Includes few |Includes several | |

| |punctuation, |grammatical errors, |grammatical errors, |grammatical errors, | |

| |capitalization are |misspellings, |misspellings, |misspellings, | |

| |correct. No errors in |punctuation errors, |punctuation errors, |punctuation errors, | |

| |the text. All titles |etc. that do not |etc. that do |etc. Missing titles, | |

| |are correct & relevant |distract. All titles |distract/are |etc. | |

| |& engaging. |are correct & |noticeable. Some titles| | |

| | |relevant. |could be more engaging | | |

| | | |or accurate. | | |

|Creativity/ |Original, creative, |Somewhat original, |Fairly original, |Not original or |  |

|Originality |time appropriate. |creative, time |creative. Could have |creative. Did not spend| |

| |Includes creative |appropriate. Includes|done more with the time|enough time on project.| |

| |“space-fillers”. |“space-fillers”. |that was allotted. |Uses little or no | |

| | | |Could have more |“fillers”. | |

| | | |“space-fillers”. | | |

|Economy of Language/ |The story/article is |The article’s |The story/article seems|The article needs | |

|Writing |told with exactly the |composition is |to need more editing. |extensive editing. It | |

| |right amount of detail |typically good, though|It is noticeably too |is too long or too | |

| |throughout. It does not|it seems to drag |long or too short in |short to be | |

| |seem too short nor does|somewhat OR need |more than one section. |interesting. Little to | |

| |it seem too long. Good |slightly more detail |Needs more development.|no development. Missing| |

| |facts & development. |in one or two |Missing some of the |a significant amount of| |

| |Includes the who, |sections. Includes |who, what, where, when,|the facts of the story.| |

| |what, where, when, why,|development. Includes|why, how of story. | | |

| |how of story. |who, what, where, | | | |

| | |when, why, how of | | | |

| | |story. | | | |

| |Total Points |  /100 |

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